Unemployment Roles At Record 5.56 Million
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Jobs
There have been a few bright spots on the economic front lately (stock market, home sales), but since employment is a trailing indicator it’s probably not going to get better any time soon.
And to that point, last week’s jobless claims were 652,000, bringing the total to the number in the title.
What do the figures tell us? Well, the year-on-year comparisons with and without seasonal factors are now basically identical. In both measures, we are losing jobs at a pace of 300,00 more than last year at this time. This is the 10th week in a row that the NSA (non seasonally-adjusted) numbers have been at this level. In my view, this can only mean that layoffs, while high, are not rising significantly. It also means that seasonal adjustments will be less of a factor until summer.On the other hand, the unemployed are finding it hard to get a job. The SA, the NSA and year-comparison numbers are all getting worse. For example, there are 3 million more people unemployed than there were at this time last year. 6 months ago, that figure was only 800,000.
More as it develops…
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This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 and is filed under Economy, Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 4th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Unemployment is indeed a trailing indicator, and also a poor reflection of the true unemployment situation in America. The official unemployment rate doesn’t include people who have given up on their job search, those who are under-employed, and the scores of new workers (recent high school and college graduates, as well as summer workers) who can’t find a first job.